Boost for bobsleigh hopeful

Hames’ hopes of reaching the pinnacle of his sport have been considerably boosted in recent weeks after he was handpicked to join a fast-track scheme to sporting excellence, following his positive start to life in the world of bobsleigh.

HE’S still a teenager and also relatively new to the world of winter sports but Quorn’s Adam Hames is a man on a mission, hell-bent on following in the footsteps of Lizzy Yarnold and Amy Williams by one day medalling for Team GB at an Olympic Games.

Hames’ hopes of reaching the pinnacle of his sport have been considerably boosted in recent weeks after he was handpicked to join a fast-track scheme to sporting excellence, following his positive start to life in the world of bobsleigh.

The Rawlins Academy student will now be assisted by The Nottingham Building Society and SportsAid, who identify and then fund athletes with grants of £750 towards equipment and competition costs and also provide expert tuition and guidance from a raft of former Olympians.

The 18-year-old said: “The support from SportsAid and The Nottingham Building Society is absolutely invaluable; I’m over the moon with it and everything it offers me,” said Hames, who is one of 50 rising stars selected to join the programme as part of the Doing Good Together scheme which works with charities to improve the prosperity of local communities.

“I can’t thank them enough, it’s amazing what they are doing and the work they are putting in to support athletes like me.”

“I have goals and targets I want to achieve. My best moment in my career is my first ever race. After all that time at talent ID, a month later they took four of us to Norway to race against other nations in the Youth World Cup.

“We were against countries like Russia, Germany and Switzerland who all have their own tracks and have all been training since they were eight.

“It was my first podium finish in a race, it was crazy - we were thrown in the deep end.

“It was such a big relief knowing that I wasn’t just going to go and come last and that I had things to build on.”

Having already donated £190,000 to SportsAid to help athletes buy equipment, travel to competitions and receive the training they need to be the best they can, The Nottingham Building Society is now helping athletes on the path to PyeongChang, Tokyo and beyond and have so far fundraised over £37,000 supporting 128 athletes.

Hames, who is joined on the scheme by other Loughborough athletes, wheelchair basketball player Lucy Robinson, teen mountain biker Alec Gregory and 400m hurdler Jessica Turner, is now looking to build on his early success in the world of bobsleigh and deliver on his considerable pedigree in the senior environment.

“It’s a very strange one; since I was four I did karate. I was European Champion, British Champion, and then English Champion,” he added. “I had loads of titles and really enjoyed it and I still train a bit.

“But then, in 2015 I was listening to the radio one morning with my Dad and it said ‘Loughborough Uni GB Bobsleigh trials are looking for power athletes and youth athletes’ so I said, ‘yeah, go on then’.

“It’s only recently that I’m moving to two-man bobsleighs, because I’ve turned 18 and broken into the senior team.

“I’m loving life at the moment and now I just need to build from here and take my career to the next level.”

To help Hames with additional funding the Loughborough branch of The Nottingham is staging an event on Thursday (June 1) with staff completing a sponsored cycle in branch using two exercise bikes. The target is to complete a distance of the equivalent of St Albans to Scunthorpe (the society’s two furthest branches). The event will run in branch all day from 9am to 5pm and is supported by Leicester Tigers and Pure Gym.

• Nottingham Building Society and Harrison Murray teamed up with SportsAid in 2013 to help future sports stars get their time to shine. Visit thenottingham.com to find out more.